Marc's Public Blog - Hiking / Backpacking

Day #10: very occasional light rain, aka a fine sunny day in Great Britain (good given the hours of hiking we did)

On the way to the lake district, we stopped by Dove Cottage/Wordsworth Museum, which while having some nice cottages, was kind of boring given that I had no idea who the former inhabitant (poet/writer) was

But this put us on the way to the hilly region around lakes, where we did a couple of hikes:

after parking our car, we took the boat across the lake

and we did that hike back (11km, 2h20-ish)

We then got back to our car, and we drove to the next lake by Keswick, and did the catbell hike to the local top. Thank god for long days, we were able to start late-ish in the afternoon when there was room in the 8 car only trailhead location. That hike was a lot more steep and gave better views:

then we hiked down around and back down to the lake

those were all over

And after close to 20km/4.5h of hiking, we drove to our gastro pub for well needed food :)

Lava Beds NP is full of caves and lava tubes

The rangers in the visitor center were quite helpful at suggesting extra places to visit, and we started by doing a few caves on Cave Loop:

caves were dark, even when some light came in, this is without firesword

and lit with firesword, 4000 lumens

actually I had 2 fireswords, one set on low (1000 lumens), and one set on high (4000 lumens)

some lava tubes were quite big

sometimes the cave split up, more than once even

at times, it really looked like a tube

other times, it was triangular

Nice ceiling formations:

Some caves required a bit of hiking:

We then did a hike to and around Mammoth Crater. It wasn't the best lighting, but still nice crater to hike around:

path around the crater

We still had a bit of time, so we went to check out skull cave. a huge cave opening with ice at the bottom floor:

it was quite hot outside, and yet cool enough for ice at the bottom

We used to the rest of the time to hike up Schonchin Butte Cinder Cone for sunset views, an easy 25mn hike up:

nice plaques explaining the views

We then went back to our campsite for dinner and stargazing:

we had a nice roomy tent

We started the 2nd day with what we should have done the first day: the beginner intro mushpot cave, all lit up and full of signs, including an interpretative walk, there:

Next, we went to check out Valentine Cave, a pretty huge and interesting cave:

the roof got low eventually, Jennifer went to check it out (my light)

that was Jennifer coming back with only her light on

We then hiked to symbol bridge and big painted cave, which had indian cave pictographs:

I found a hole at the end of the cave and was able to descend to a smaller cave with ice

Jennifer was a bit worried, the path in looked like it could collapse, but she came to check it out too

more ice

the pictographs by the entrance were hard to find, but Jennifer found them

By then, we were pretty much done, so on the way out, we stopped by the Black Crater lava flow:

One the way back to Klamath Falls, we stopped by Captains Jacks Stronghold, where he basically fought and chased off the native americans who were happily there. To be honest, the trail wasn't that interesting or really worth the time:

the native americans lived in small cool caves like this one

the battle was fought here apparently

Lava Beds National Park was actually very nice. I had never heard about it, and that was a mistake. Thanks go to Arturo for recommending the place, we got to see more lava tubes than we had seen anywhere, including Hawaii. The only thing Hawaii has that Lava Beds doesn't, is fresh lava, and freshly cooled lava. Apart from that, this national park has a great variety of things to see and learn from.

that's the peak we climbed

Since we got unexpectedly stuck in Klamath Falls the previous day, we got up around 05:30, were at the airport by 06:30, and in the air just before 07:00. This allowed us to land before 08:00 and start driving up to Lassen in time for the visitor center opening at 09:00.

we got a escort through a one way section of the road up

we arrived by the visitor center smack when it opened (09:00).

we didn't get lucky enough to see a pika this time

the park also has a Cinder Cone crater, which I failed to fly by

We then started driving up, with a quick stop at Sulphur Works:

pretty active pool

Next, we opted to climb Lassen peak while the weather was good:

people studying snow

We then went to Bumpass Hell, which isn't much compared to yellowstone, but still worth seeing:

this big rock was moved by glaciers

My next plan worked out great, we hitchhiked to Devastated Area to view the displays, and from there we walked back down the road 10mn to hat creek trailhead. The plan was to hike back up to our car on the south side of the trail.

it's full of big rocks that got brought by glaciers

We then hiked Hat Creek to Paradise Meadows and back to our car (with a quick stop at terrace lake and shadow lake because they were close enough. By then, Jennifer who was almost running in front of me, had run out of steam, so it was good that we got back to our car by 19:00, just in time to drive back to the airport and take off by 20:00 as the sun was setting: